


The Man Who Sold The World

by Meddow



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Reality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-05
Updated: 2008-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-08 16:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meddow/pseuds/Meddow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So many died when they should have lived, but one lived when he should have died. A bit of an exploration of the <i>Turn Left</i> universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Sold The World

**Author's Note:**

> This fic owes a bit David Bowie for both the title and the initial inspiration.

The Empress promised him the stars but all he received was betrayal and the second chance granted by Doctor's bitter mercy.

Trapped between the Doctor's wrath and the agonised screams of the Empress, Lance Bennett didn't know what else to do but run from the chamber.

Once free and in cold night air, he leaned against a wall, struggling to catch his breath as sirens wailed and vehicles arrived: police cars, ambulances and a military truck.

Instead of joining the crowd, he turned and ran off into the night.

\---

The journalist barged into his home some months later. "Sarah Jane Smith," she announced, voice filled with spite. "You may have fooled the police and you may have fooled UNIT, but you were there."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you do. Christmas below the Thames. You girlfriend Jessica Vincent and a man known as the Doctor. Quite comfortable with two deaths on your conscience?" she asked.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he repeated. He grabbed her arm and easily pushed the small woman out of his front door.

"It hardly matters," she yelled at him. "I'm going to see to it you're dealt with. I just wanted to meet you face to face first. See the man who succeeded where so many others failed."

She stared into the sky, to the strange dark clouds gathering above the city. Her watch started beeping.

"I just hope you know what you've done," she shouted at him before rushing away.

Lance waited, but there were no consequences. He knew the threat was not empty, but the journalist suffocated in Royal Hope Hospital that very same day.

Still, rattled by her intrusion, he thought it best to get out of town. He took that job with the Leeds Council.

\---

He dreamt of a woman dressed in white whom he had never met. He didn't know why she was there. He didn't find her attractive. Some men dreamt of supermodels, but Lance always got the woman with red hair, always dressed in white.

\---

It was not long before he'd had enough of Leeds. The city was too small for a man of his ambition. He had nearly made it out when the Titanic hit. He was just waiting until after New Years, and then he would have given in his notice. I didn't make sense quitting his job before Christmas.

It quickly became clear to Lance in the aftermath of the explosion that there was now far more opportunities available to a clever civil servant in Yorkshire.

\---

He kept dreaming of the woman in white and finding that he would be back there in the chamber under the Thames, wrapped in web and hanging over that black pit. She would be beside him.

Though sometimes the woman wouldn't be there and it would be as it had been. Just him and his terrified victim Jessica, sobbing for her life. Except this time instead of Jessica being chosen as the sacrifice for the Empress' children, it was him.

\---

Free-walking fat was just the latest in a long line of disasters, each one seeming more ludicrous than the last. It was as if they were being taunted. Lance was despondent.

"Are you devastated because we've no longer got their aid? Or are you devastated because you've no longer got your shiny new position handing it out?" a co-worker asked.

\---

England for the English. The new policy of the new government as handed down by their new leader, elected by a count of gun barrels.

Some quit in protest. Some ran away. Some were sent away. Most stayed. Lance remained and kept his head down.

\---

He met her one day. He walked into the box-filled cupboard that could laughingly be called his office and there stood the woman in his dreams. Not dressed in white, but wrapped in an old coat. Just another desperate soul in world bursting with them.

She handed him a copy of her CV, typed up rather than word processed, its edges creased from being handed around in vain hope of employment.

If she ever dreamt of him, it did not show in her reactions to him.

"Please," she said. "This is the last place left to ask and I need a job. I've got my mum and my granddad to support and they've just got me."

He flicked through what she had written about herself, wondering why of all the women in the world, he dreamt of her.

"You're not from Leeds either," she continued. "You've lost everything too. Surely you can understand."

This was the woman he had dreamt of? Another refugee begging him for a job? Neither a bride nor an angel nor a sacrifice.

"Please," she whispered again.

"And surely you can understand," he replied, "that I get twenty people asking me for a job every day. Everybody's got someone counting on them. Everyone's hungry. I've got former barristers clamouring for jobs that pay barely enough to buy bread and you're just a temp with three O-Levels. Why should I hire you? Why should I care about you?"

He studied her reaction, almost hopeful for her to do something to justify his dreams. She didn't cry and she didn't yell. Instead she took the CV out of his hands.

"Ever known a barrister that could type?" she replied as she walked away.

\---

He was turned away one morning when he showed up for work. He couldn't get an answer as to why. Maybe it was the Lord Protector making room for one of his sycophants or maybe it was because of the rapidly narrowing definition of the term 'English.'

Either way, he was on his own.

\---

Lance walked through the empty streets, filled with rubbish, graffiti and the remains of burnt out fires. It wasn't safe at night, but he didn't care anymore. He could be mugged or murdered by one of the voiceless starving millions, but who gave a damn? There was no hope anymore. There was just the wait for the next disaster or for the truck to come in the early hours of the morning.

He heard a noise, a bang and then a clamour as a rubbish bin fell to the ground. He turned to find a blonde woman stood on the street corner, watching him emotionlessly.

"What?" Lance asked.

She looked up into the night sky and Lance followed her gaze wondering just what she was staring at it. And then saw it, or rather he did not. Suddenly the central star of the Orion's belt was gone.

And then another. And another. One by one the stars blinked out of existence.

"Is this it now? It this it? Haven't you already taken enough!?" Lance yelled at the sky.

He no longer had it in him for confusion, fear or despair. All he had left was anger.

"I was promised the stars!" he screamed at the universe so hell bent on taunting him.

"You'll never get them," the woman replied.

He turned back to look at her, but she was gone. He was left alone, staring at the spreading darkness above.

"I was promised the stars."


End file.
